I pressed my hand to my mouth, closing my eyes as her words cut welts into my heart.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t say that to hurt you.”
Flicking my eyes open, I smiled at her. Well, I tried to. “No,I’m glad you did. I want to know what I’m dealing with here. How to talk to him.”
I was dealing with four years of pent up hurt and anger. There was so much inside of him I wanted him to tell me.
“Hey, want to go watch a movie?” Cole asked from across the room.
“Yeah, sure.”
Mia gave me a smile as I got up—one that saidgood luck. I had a feeling I was going to need it because I couldn’t ignore what just happened, and he clearly wasn’t okay.
Cole took my hand, leading me upstairs, but his grip was a bit too loose and his jaw holding a bit too much tension. It felt like we were going into battle.
I closed the door while he sat on the bed, blowing out a long breath.
Turning to him, I said, “We should talk.”
“About what? I thought you wanted to watch a movie.”
“No, you wanted to watch a movie, and that’s only to get us away from the conversation downstairs.”
“Not now, Oakley.”
“Then, when?”
“I don’t know. You’re here, let’s not go back to the past.”
“Everything is about the past.”
I walked over to him, climbed onto the bed, and straddled his legs. There was no getting out of this conversation.
Sighing, he looked up at the ceiling, mad at me, but his hands did come down to caress my thighs. I wasn’t going to let him turn this into sex, though.
“Mia said you shut down when I left.”
“Yeah, well, Mia’s a meddling fucker.”
“I did the same.”
“Don’t want to talk about this,” he told me, his voice ice cold.
“Hey, don’t do that,” I said, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “I need you to know how sorry I am.”
“I do.”
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“When you’re sitting on me like this?” He arched his hips, pressing his erection into me.
I shook my head, not allowing him to distract me with how much my body wanted him. This was too important. “Cole.”
“How do you fucking think I was back then?” he asked with no anger in his voice.
Let go of that control.
“I don’t know about you, but I felt like I was dying. Mum and Jasper tried to make me feel better by giving me my favourite things and nothing worked. Hot chocolate tasted bitter, ice cream sour, movies were flat, books were boring, gymnastics was… awful. Nothing was the same, nothing made me smile, and I was wilting.”
